Locked

Every Secret is a Little Casket When we got to my father’s grave, my mother apologized. Anthills puckered at the seams of the grave. Crabgrass hemmed in the nameplate. It was a flat grave, not high but deep. Another beside it with her name and single date seemed to wait, undisturbed. Seemed to wait. Tending was what she thought she hadn’t done: tiny minutes unstitched . . . Subscriber Access Required This article is available

Certainly not the Angel Red I might try, Fire and Ice was my mother’s one and only, flaming her lips and smooching my father’s. Faithful to her favorite shade, she lived her creed of right and wrong. She did not convert to a miniskirt or wear pants, except for hiking, and never applied pink by any name. The click when she capped the sleek cylinder was as distinct as the tap, tap of high heels

Tachycardia Tachycardia all day yesterday faint 8 a.m. by evening a fast thud-thud insistent as if someone is trying to tell me something in a language I don’t know the sign language of a being that expresses itself in beats and is becoming impatient with my ignorance we used to understand each other perfectly or so I thought I thought we were like sisters

Yes, I saw them all, saw them, met some, Richard Hell, Lou Reed, Basquiat, Warhol, Burroughs, Kenneth Koch, and it all left me feeling invisible or fucked, fucked sideways, fucked by a john who stiffs you on your fee and doesn’t leave a tip, it wasn . . . Subscriber Access Required This article is available to paid subscribers with digital access. Already a subscriber with digital access? Log in here to read the full

Dead at Last Dead at last!  Dead at last! Now I can see the world as it is floating indifferent like the gull from the hospital window white with black wingtips feeling the currents of air guiding its flight.  Perfectly free from compassion for me. Nirvana I can’t find the can opener and then I do. The electrician shows me my name on his forearm “Linda” in pink magic marker which is how he remembers

The Announcement A bird came to see me once, a talking magpie that said, This will happen— and I didn’t so much agree as think, why me? It was arbitrary, as far as I could see. Ordinary—being at hand and being asked to do whatever needs doing. Steadfast as a tattoo that can’t be washed off. A castle that isn’t mine reminds me that this was not my idea, especially considering how inevitable death is,

Family Keepsake My grandmother wanted to die but in the online form, I say no, no family member has died by or attempted suicide  because  having children, no matter the goal,  is still giving life. Because that’s what blood is. The psychiatrist asked if she’d tried to kill herself before.